It's a Baby Shower for Vino!

Last weekend found me trekking down to San Diego, my home away from home, to help throw a baby shower for Vino. As a recap, Vino is pregnant with her first baby, a boy, in December. Blondie, our other bff, is also pregnant with her first baby, a girl, in December. Due dates are only 4 days apart. Mmmm hmmm. Needless to say, we're not relying on either one to do too much to host the other's shower since they're busy cooking a baby and all. Trying to work on both showers at the same time has kept me pretty busy this fall, to say the least. :)

I had been working with Vino's mom and sister for the past several weeks to get everything ready and I can happily say that the day was such a success. Our theme for the shower was Dr. Seuss, inspired by similar showers thrown here and here. While I was the one that first suggested the idea, this was such a group effort - Crafty and Dressing Queen really took the theme and ran with it and between the three of us, the creativity was really flowing. Blondie also helped us last weekend, but since she is, you know, cooking a baby and everything, we thought we'd let her take it easy for the shower planning this time around. ;)

The original idea was to have the party outside, but the rain made that impossible. Instead, we moved the set-up inside and dare I say, I think the cozy atmosphere help to concentrate the decor, which made a much bigger impact.

The Cat in the Hat greeted everyone at the door. Love him so much!

The main dining area. Paper lanterns hung from the ceiling while gerbera daisies, Dr. Seuss books and plush toys decorated the tables.

We "disassembled" a couple of Dr. Seuss books to make banners that hung around the house. Blondie did a great job stringing everything together and it was a simple way to add some color to the party.

The large diningroom table featured more plush characters and books. The fish in the bowl about killed me. He was just too cute!

For the favors, Dressing Queen and I made mini Cat in the Hat "hats" from marshmallows, white chocolate and mini gluten free cookies. While they turned out so super cute, they took HOURS to make. Maybe not one of my best ideas. Heh.

In the food department, Dressing Queen pretty much killed it. She put together a lovely lunch spread that included a selection of chilled dishes, including "green eggs and ham", of course. Made the morning food prep so much easier and the final products were just delicious! There was lots of going back for seconds and thirds - always a good thing. Instead of boring menu cards, Crafty made the cutest menu sign I've ever seen! I want one of these at every event I host!

This was easily one of the most relaxed and laid back events I've ever had the pleasure of helping to host. No super late night doing last minute tasks or running around super stressed out before the guests arrived. It was just so nice and mellow. Most important, it seemed that Vino had a great time, which is really all that matters. I'd say we are some very happy ladies, don't you think?

Congratulations again Vino! I can't wait to meet the little man later this year. :)

Super fun weekend

This stretch of October through December is easily my favorite time of year. Not only is the weather (usually) starting to cool down and the holiday treats are in full swing, but we have football and basketball games to attend, assorted parties and the typical holiday fetes as well. See, so much good stuff!

This weekend was jam-packed with stuff, which left little time for sewing or reading, but was really fun all the same. After a mellow Friday night at home, Saturday had both of us early - Jim was off to play 2 rounds of golf with Dubber while I stayed at home and caught up on some DVR shows, cleaned up the house, did a crapton of laundry and started yet another baby gift. [I know, I know, for someone who doesn't have any kids, I sure do make a bunch of baby stuff. Yes, well, this is what happens when you know close to 20 babies being born in one year. Mmmm hmmmm.] By the time he got home, it was about time to head out for Dubber's surprise birthday party his wife was hosting at their house.

Dubber's wife Girlie is entering her last month of pregnancy and is naturally busy with a bunch of other stuff, but still put together a lovely, low-key get together at their house. The menu of pizza and cake was, as she described it, "a 5 year old birthday party, just with alcohol." Perfect for a Saturday night. A total of 5 couples and one precious 10 month old were there. Once the little one was fed and passed out in the bedroom, the rest of us proceeded to eat, drink and play Taboo, which led to a brouhaha of laughter, screaming, yelling, and general craziness. Seriously, I can't remember when I laughed that hard and for that long. Such a great night!

We both opted to sleep in on Sunday, knowing that our night was going to be very long. After hanging around the house in the morning and early afternoon, we were off to the Rosebowl to see U2! We had received numerous emails to make sure to arrive early as there were close to 100,000 people expected for the event - the largest concert ever held at the Rosebowl. We are such goody toeshoes, so we arrived around 3:30pm (keep in mind, The Black Eyed Peas, who were opening, weren't scheduled to go on until 7:00pm) and had fun milling around the entertainment and food tents. We grabbed some grub and some drinks and enjoyed the scene until it was time to go in.

I knew that we had paid a pretty penny for our seats and was hoping they were decent, but seriously, I didn't realize they were this good! (Please pardon the crappy iphone pictures. I completely forgot my camera and was kicking myself all night!)
The concert was fabulous - The Black Eyed Peas kicked it off with a bang and did a good job of firing up a group of fans that didn't seem to be all that into their music and U2 was really great. Even though attending a concert that large is kinda nutty, there is something really special about being in a stadium with 100,000 other people who are all singing and cheering and swaying along with you. Really powerful stuff.
Once the concert was over, we just sat down and let the 93473947257 billion other people clear out a bit before making it back to our car. I was amazed to see that we still got home at 12:30am - you have no idea how happy I was to live locally that night!

One funny story - so as we're waiting to let everyone clear out, a bunch of young people are crossing through our row and while the seats and rows all around us are completely empty, they still decide to pass right by us so that we have to stand up to let them go. I mean, come one, just walk around us! I roll my eyes and make some comment to Jim and he turns to me and says "Wow, you can sure go from 0 to bitch in about 2 seconds, huh?" Now, if you know my husband, you know this is something so out of character for him to say. I started cracking up and said that while it's completely true, I never in a million years would have ever expected him to say something like that. It's been two days and we're still laughing over it.

This upcoming weekend is going to be pretty mellow - just a work dinner with Jim on Sunday night that is amazingly just up the street from us. And thank goodness because once November starts, it's going to be go go go. :)

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Completely off-topic from the weekend fun, but I've been back at the gym, pounding away for 3 weeks now and can I just tell you, it's effing hard as hell! Whatever stamina and muscle tone I had built up over the summer just up and disappeared while I was sick. I knew it was going to be hard going back, but holy crud - it's really tough! Thankfully, fun instructors and good music makes everything bearable and I can see flickers of my old fitness level coming back. But yeah, I'm pretty much dying 3-4 nights a week. Pertussis - the gift that keeps on giving. :)

Baby Shower!

This post is super late, but the pictures are too bright and pretty not to post.

Towards the end of April, I hosted a baby shower for Jim's cousin. Other family members had offered to help, but I was hell bent on getting it done by myself. One of his other cousins laughed when I told her this - she said she is the exact same way and not to let everyone's offers to help derail me. Man, I love his family!

Actually getting everything done took a full 2.5 days of working non-stop. The majority of the prep was spent on food stuff. Not the best pictures, but this is what the kitchen looks like during the middle of a food storm.

By the time the morning of the shower rolled around, things were finally looking pretty and clean. We cleared out and rearranged our livingroom so we could bring in tables and chairs for a full sit-down lunch. I think it turned out really well. Looking back though, I think we could easily accomodate even more people next time and since our house is so white and neutral, I could definitely go with colored linens to really liven up.

After all the work in the kitchen, the food turned out great! One of his aunts thought I had bought everything already made and she was speechless when she found out that everything (dressings included) was made from scratch, with the exception of the bread. The only thing I didn't get a chance to photograph was dessert - it was just too hectic changing from lunch to dessert set-up. The options included mini cheesecakes, carrot cake cupcakes with ginger-orange cream cheese frosting and white cupcakes with strawberry buttercream frosting.

The food didn't stop at dessert. Those cookies cooling on the racks above? They are mini two-bite cookies that I put into takeout boxes for the favors. I think they might be my favorite thing of the whole set-up. :)

Overall, the shower went really well. Everything turned out as I envisioned it and his cousin and the rest of the guests seemed to have a really good time. While it was a ton of work, I was so happy with the finished product. :)